Figaro, the author of the Figures of Speech blog is so brilliant, but this is my favorite post so far. The gyst of his posts follow this pattern: stupid quote (usually by a modern politician), which figure of speech it uses, explaination of figure, and “snappy answer.”

The snappy answer for the quote, “You turn this nation over to the fags and our soldiers come home in body bags.” Shirley Phelps-Roper was “Are you calling Congress and the President of the United States fags?”

Finally, Woody’s prolific writing and directing pays off big time. Match Point is a long film with a very proper English family, an intriguing love affair, and a twisty ending that makes this Woody’s best film in years. But it’s not fair to only rank this film amongst the writer/director’s past films–Match Point is certainly one of the most interesting screenplays of 2005.

Laura didn’t like Scarlett Johansson’s acting, but I didn’t notice anything odd. I kept thinking of Jonathan Rys-Meyers as Elvis.

The cinematography and acting are so Woody Allen–slow, deliberate, exact. Perhaps this is a skill he picked up from his idol Ingmar Bergman. His way with language, normally put into the mouths of New York characters, translates nicely into proper British English. Somehow it’s a perfect match.

I can say no more, as the ending is a surprise, but I’ll leave you with my rating: 8 out of 10. It’s a bit too slow for my taste–not that I complained at the time, I just prefer shorter films.

Actually, I’ll leave you with this pertinent information from IMDB:His films often include 2 female personality traits: one a spontaneous, energetic, offbeat artist and the other a motherly care-giver type…… and Woody (or his main male character) will have to chose between the two.

This morning as I did my hair the folks over at Blimp 9 news (a reference only fellow MNSpeakers well get, sorry) reminded me that it’s the anniversary of the Challenger explosion. But not just any anniversary–the 20th anniversary.

It is, as every news report says, one of those moments where you remember exactly where you were. I was in what I seem to recall as third grade, though it must have been second grade if I was eight. Mrs. Hagen, a chubby blond lady was our teacher and she had the TV in the upper corner of the room on for us when we came back from our early lunch… or maybe it was gym Either way, I remember coming into our classroom and not sitting down for a long time. I just stood and watched the TV.

My point here is that I fucking remember this huge event that happened TWENTY years ago, and that makes me feel old. I know I whine about age too much, but this one is really blowing me away.

I found this interesting article about how our memories of big events like this fade and become garbeled over time. Well duh, but there’s more too it than that. Maybe I did sit down, or maybe I wasn’t just coming back from something. I couldn’t even remember what grade I was in. Here’s an except from the article:

“Then we saw a blue parachute come down. It turns out the parachute was attached to the black box,” Turner [an eyewitness one year younger than me] said.In reality, the shuttle didn’t have a black box. There was no parachute.Psychologists say these “flashbulb” memories aren’t as accurate as we think.“Vividness and accuracy need to be separated,” said Washington University cultural psychologist James Wertsch.

I suppose some second grader on 9/11/2001 will blog about how old they feel in 2021 on the 20th anniversary of that awful event. And they’ll get it all wrong.

Apparently some fading Mexican female wrestler may have been killing little old ladies since the 1990s. As if that’s not odd enough, apparently the police started investigating transvestites because eyewitnesses saw what appeared to be a man in women’s clothing running after little old ladies.

I was just telling someone how uncomfortable I get with myself whenever Osama sends out a video and I end up agreeing with some things he says. (Please don’t put me in jail for writing that. I may be a dissident, but I’m an unharmful one.)

I wonder if the author is now deemed as an enemy of the state.

Blum’s 320-page book, which was published in 2000, begins with a chapter titled “Why Do Terrorists Keep Picking on the United States.” The first sentence says, “Washington’s war on terrorism is as doomed to failure as its war on drugs has been.”

Oh my god, I can hardly believe that people who bear cold temperatures part of the year actually know how to serve up some entertainment and have fun! Who knew?

And yes, they included St Paul.

The only thing that surprised me was that there are so many golfers here. That’s where I don’t understand hobbies vs. climate. Then again, I’m not sure why discussing golf is appropriate for an article about how “fun” a place is.

The Twin Cities keep getting national recognition like this, and I love it. We rule.